LCN Magnetic Nail Polish Swatches, Photos & Review

LCN has a new line of nail polishes out that are called Magnetic Nail Polish.

Move over crackle, here come magnetic’s! No really, I am pretty sure this is going to be the next big trend and I can see why.

Magnetic nail polish isn’t a new thing, it’s been done before by other nail companies, but I have a feeling we are going to see a lot of big companies jumping on this trend in the next few months.

So how do these work? From what I understand, when you paint your nail, you hold the magnet over the polish and the magnet aligns the metal particles in the polish into a certain pattern. That’s about all I know!

What I can tell you is this was my first time trying them out and at first I did NOT get it to work. But then I did one nail at a time and that was the key.

The LCN Magnetic Nail Polishes come in eight different colors and in small 8 ml bottles. The names aren’t on the bottles but they have them listed on their website.

The magnets that go with these come in two patterns; a diagonal pattern and star-shaped one.

Here’s what you do:

Apply whatever base coat you normally use (I don’t this this interferes with the magnetic patterns)

Apply one very thick later of the LCN Magnetic Nail Polish to one nail

Hold whichever magnet you prefer directly over your nail as close as you can (without touching the nail) for 10-12 seconds

Once you take the magnet away, you will see the shape there

Continue doing your other nails, one at a time

Things I learned:

You cannot paint a couple nails, then try using the magnet because it needs to be pretty wet and fresh for it to work. I tried painting four nails then doing it and I got no pattern at all

It can be challenging to hold the magnet over the wet nail without touching. The best way I found (after trial and error) is to prop your elbow on a table, take the hand you are holding the magnet with (try using your middle finger and thumb to hold it) and hold the magnet over your nail while steadying the finger with the polish on it with your pinky. That way you can see how close the magnet is to the nail

Another thing I learned is depending on where you place the magnet, you can place where the pattern is on your nail. So if you want the star in the middle, you put it directly over the middle of your nail. If you want it off to the side, you place it a little towards the left/right. Same goes for the diagonal striped one. You can change the direction of the stripes depending on how and where you hold it

Wait about 5 minutes before applying a top coat

Fuchsia Attraction

Fuchsia Attraction is a lavender shade and I used it with the diagonal magnet. I love the way this came out, looks so cool!

Here I have all the diagonal stripes going in the same direction.

Fuchsia Attraction

Green Temptation

Here is Green Temptation with the star magnet. I tried doing most of them towards the middle of my nail, but it can be tricky to get them all exact.

Green Temptation

Ferromagnetic Blue

Here is Ferromagnetic Blue and the diagonal magnet. I switched up the direction of it with this one, as you can see from the stripes. I really like this color also.

Copper Seduction

Here is Copper Seduction with the star magnet. Here I used the star more towards the edges so you don’t see as much of the center of the star as you do with the green one above.

Overall:

These are really fun I think, and don’t take too much practice to get down. I like that the learning curve is pretty small because I don’t have patience for super complicated nail art! I do think the prices are a bit high, especially for how small the bottles are.

Yeah, the hype was started all over again in Europe with Essence Metallics magnetic polish, but the magnet that came with polish was utter crap. Alessandro however had perfect colours with perfect magnets in their limited Go Magic! Twist collection. Not so perfect price though (18.5 USD per bottle), so i didn’t get any. Now i just might, with new LE four coming out. Good to know the trend is catching up, maybe I’ll get some cheaper alternatives and save some money! I love the Green Temptation, of course. 🙂

Recently I saw a new shelf of LCN polishes at my local perfumery, but I always skipped them cause the colors didn’t appeal me, so I can’t tell whether they’re the magnetic ones or not. I’ll go and check again!

These are amazing, but pretty pricey. I do wonder what different sized regular magnets would do to the polish. Glue smaller magnets to a base maybe: small dot/dots, small square? Oh, and what if you had a magnet sheet that was thin enough to us a shaped craft punch? My curiosity is piqued, but my wallet is closed… for now.

Oh I like these. And I am not a big fan of any nail art – and esp way done with the crackles/shatters and all those – messy nasty looking things. This is like the best part of a hollo polish. I can see where they would be able to develop other patterns with the magnets. My only issue is what is possibly in the polish formulations that creates these effects. More harmful things possibly? Certainly we know few folks that even realize they need to dispose of their used polish bottles like they would paint for their house and other haz mat materials. Also OUCH with the cost on those magnets!

Oh – forgot to mention your link ‘here’ you gave out for their web site to purchase is a dead link. It goes to ‘other suggestions’ none that work. So you need to check what URL you put into your ‘here’ link. I am off to Google them to see if I can find where to purchase. Maybe next months’ polish budget I can do these. I went way over board this month in that dept.

HELP! I am only finding a place on line in the UK who sells these…Vampy – what is the correct URL in your ‘here’ link that is not working?? Are these sold in the states or only overseas. If only over seas that’s a 2 fur me today as Scraggie posted some amazing Aussie polishes today.

vampy, have you tried using another polish’s magnet with this polish? the website says you must use their magnet, but i would think the magnet from my l’oreal star magnet polish would work just fine. i can’t really justify spending almost $20 one

I REALLY wish I read your review before I ordered these. I was mistaken when I thought that the magnets actually came with the polish from reading another np blogger’s review. I spent $27.80 on two polishes that I cannot use. On the website they didn’t have any notice either. All they stated was that the polish wouldn’t work without one of the LCN magnets. The drop down menu had the polish shades listed, but it didn’t show the two magnet patterns.

I think it’s interesting in theory but for $9.95 a bottle, how’s the endurance of the polish once it dries? Does it chip easily? I mean, even just the polish is more expensive than salon brands such as OPI and China Glaze.

I only just swatched them, so cannot comment on the wear. However I assume it’s the same as with most polish, it depends on the application and the person’s activities. For me pretty much every polish brand shows wear within 2-3 days and I remove it. Some people say their lasts 7-10 days with no wear, which I always find very hard to believe. I think it’s probably more $$ because of the magnetic properties they include in it, but not really positive about that.

I was so excited to get this and try it! I have been looking for magnetic polish for a few months now. and while I love love love it, I do find that it chips easily. like if you look at it too long it will chip! LOL I would def use this for a night out or something, but def not a long wear polish!
Thank you for posting this, I was so excited to find it!

Hmm, I like these, but I think I’ll wait and see what other brands might come out with. I’m doing a swap for the essence version and I’m hoping the price doesn’t impact the quality, but we’ll see! What does the magnet look like? Is it strips of magnet in those shapes?

About Me

Hello and welcome to my blog!

My name is Kelly and I have been running Vampy Varnish since 2008. Vampy Varnish is one of the very first nail blogs and features nail polish and makeup product reviews, and swatch photos. I'm an SF/Bay Area native and proud owner of 3 cats and a dog!